I am going to share something I have never written about before but get asked about a lot – what it was really like to be a part of the Hidden Science show.
A request
Around July 2013 I got a message from internationally renowned David Icke asking me to create a TV show for his new venture The People’s Voice TV (TPV). He wanted to create a credible show which would debate various scientific issues and be able to invite skeptics into the studio.
James and I quickly put together a proposal and a video highlighting the sorts of areas I had been involved with so far. David had come to me asking me to create a Punk Science show so a natural progression was to align it with the types of topics covered in the book. For the first time ever, we are making this audition footage available to the public. As you can see this was when the show was still called ‘Punk Science’
The planning stages
As time progressed, I thought it best to separate the show from my persona and brand, Punk Science so it was not all about me. The first producer involved came up with the name ‘Hidden Science’ and the graphics person, Miki Zoric got to work immediately on the amazing graphics that you see on the show.
To attend meetings, I had to travel down from Derbyshire, where I lived at the time, all the way to Wembley in North London where David’s team had kitted out a large office and TV studio. Through the hard work of some dedicated individuals who were either volunteers or receiving very little money, the sets and the office for TPV slowly took shape. Equipment was donated or obtained second hand and the office and studio gradually started to take shape.
The Hidden Science team
There was an initial shuffling around of the staff which ended up with bringing the director John Webster of Patient Zero Productions on board with the musician and producer, Clifford White. Both worked without pay or expenses for the entire time of the project. John Webster and myself eventually emerged as the main production thrust of the project and despite the fact that neither of us were getting paid, we both insisted on high standards in our complementary skills which contributed to the show’s success.
Yes you read that right, despite the fact that Hidden Science pretty much became my full time work for eight months, I did not receive a penny in payment for work or for expenses even though I was traveling from London to Derbyshire to take shoot the show, which was a round trip of 300 miles. Luckily I had some other work that came in during that period but it was a bit touch and go for myself and James. In an attempt to limit the amount of travel I had to do, I insisted that we prerecord two shows in a day so that I could fit shows around my speaking schedule.
Co-ordinating our skills
Between us we created a list of topics, guests and went about booking them. It was all hands on deck each of us using our skills to put the project together. Clifford composed the music to Miki Zoric’s opening title graphics. He also co-ordinated the guests with me and liaised between TPV and Hidden Science.
John created the set design and even came up with the printed background idea that enable TPV to quickly change studios in between shows. He created the running order and format and directed the show with the gallery director. This included a new experience for me – having someone talking in my ear whilst I was on the show. It reminded me a bit of seeing patients as a doctor as I needed to be conscious of several lines of thinking at once.
John would also film the mini documentaries that you see in the show with the actress, Grace Willis. He would also put all the footage together including the graphics and sometimes take the footage into Wembley to be uploaded in person.
We also had a great team from TPV which would include people helping with the set, audio technicians, gallery directors and more. Liz Roberts was the main point of contact for all the shows and she did an amazing job at coordinating everything for the entire channel.
Some of the TPV crew getting ready for the show Image:James Gordon Graham
With my experience in the field of science and spirituality I was able to book a lot of the guests as I have a lot of contacts in this area. Coordinating things so that three people ended up on the sofa in Wembley on the correct day to talk about the right topic took many hours and I did this from home. After the first show, I also wrote the scripts and the running order as well as sorting out the teleprompter and even doing the makeup for the guests and myself!
It was hard work to research the topics of each show which often involved reading the books which had been written by the guests. I felt it was almost like sitting exams again as I needed to be prepared for each show. I also wrote all the questions for the guests and their introductory biographies.
The success of the show
We knew that we had high standards but we did not expect what happened next. For a lot of the time that TPV was running, Hidden Science became one of the most viewed shows on the channel based on the Youtube views. The shows were added to Youtube after airing on the internet channel. Some of the statistics have been lost as the Youtube channel was hacked and all of the videos deleted but even with the replaced videos you can still see the popularity of the shows.
You won’t see the success of Hidden Science reflected in any of the trailers for TPV which are still on the internet because for some reason, despite me twice making the unpaid 300 mile round trip to the studio for promotion events when asked, we were not interviewed for them or the footage was not used. I still don’t know why this was the case because communication with management remained poor and chaotic throughout the experience. In fact I wasn’t ever sure whom to address issues to apart from Liz Roberts. There were no contracts or known management structure to refer to.
Interestingly the skeptics did not agree to come on the show. So we didn’t have the debates that David originally wanted. Instead a lot of the content was about exploring new scientific vistas with me playing devil’s advocate if needed. The shows opened up new possibilities instead of just pointing out what was wrong with the world right now – it was a message of hope and new growth. To our surprise this approach was very popular.
Would I do it again?
Ultimately, although I am glad I did the show as I was able to bring in the benefit of my experience and contacts to the show to elevate it to something of a serious scientific discourse. However, I don’t think hosting a TV show is really my forte although I enjoyed the production side of it. I am glad that I was part of bringing something of interest to a lot of people from the numbers of appreciative messages the team received.
Because the filming of the shows were often so hectic, we did not have much time to take footage of behind the scenes but sometimes James would help with the shows and this is some of the footage that was taken of the studio and in the gallery.
If you would like to find out more about the shows and watch the episodes, click here.
Physicists generally avoid discussing consciousness. It seems to be too ethereal a subject for them really to get hold of. It forces them to enter a world outside of calculations and experiments and examine the world of human behaviour which is far less predictable and controllable.
But the past twenty years has seen a shift in science as a whole where the once forbidden topic of consciousness is coming to the forefront. Possibly because it is the last frontier and people are running out of other topics to study for their PhDs.
Yet it was still a surprise when Max Tegmark, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge tackled the problem in 2014 and published a paper suggesting that Consciousness could be a state of matter. You can read the abstract here. http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.1219
You can see his TED talk below.
He is basically arguing that consciousness is not something external that is animating matter, but a consequence of the way in which matter is arranged mathematically.Tegmark himself states that there are many gaps in his idea.
One that really springs to mind for me is what happens when people are clinically dead and then are resuscitated? Or how much of a rearrangement is necessary from moment to moment for a being to be alive at one point and then dead the next?
Questions and gaps aside it is good to see that such a prominent physicist actually tackling the question at all as he open the gates for others to consider the topic too.
Of course here at Paradigm Revolution we have been discussing consciousness and matter for many years. You can get started by exploring this website or checking out Simply Divine which is an easy guide to the Science of Spirituality.
So you are in touch with your authentic message, but you just don’t know how to connect with people. Here are some common mistakes to avoid and some guidance – things I have learnt along the way in my speaking and writing career.
The Coffee Shop Conspiracy
I’ve seen it happen dozens of times. When someone has something they want to publicise they carefully print a load of leaflets – sometimes to great expense. They talk to all the kind coffee shop owners who agree to put their leaflets out on the coffee bar. They send out press releases. They book a time and a venue and then they wait: sure that their shiny new leaflets will have a great response.
And nothing happens, nobody comes. By this time the person is out of pocket by a significant amount having printed the leaflets and hired the venue complete with teas and coffees. Humiliated, they give up and never try to publicise their event or product again.
Image: Graphic Stock
From social to coffee shops
Then, along came social media. We were told that this is the new Holy Grail. I have seen authors ponder for weeks before finally signing for a twitter account suspicious of the genre. Then they start to tweet. And again nothing happens. Tweeting becomes then the online equivalent of leaving loads of leaflets in a coffee shop.
All of these methods, be it leaflets in a coffee shop or tweeting to the wide world have something in common. You are sending your message out to people who haven’t told you that they are interested hoping that some of the message is going to stick.
Who is ready to receive you?
It is far better to target your message to people whom you know are going to have some interest in you before developing a long term relationship with them before you actually sell them anything.
By the time that this happens, your audience should be ready and understand who you are so will consider what you have to offer. Gradually they should also trust you and believe the product is going to be something that they want from the free content that you have already given to them.
Creating your Customer Avatar
The internet is awash with advice on how to find your target market. Often the advice is to break this down into a theoretical person or avatar. Imagine who they are – male or female? What is their name, where do they hang out either online or offline? Slowly you can build up a picture of your customer avatar and their wants and needs. Why do you think they will be interested in your authentic message?
Image – Pixabay, Shutterstock
If you have found this message useful keep in touch with ‘How to be a Spiritual Expert in a Material World’ on Facebook dedicated to helping people of the spiritual persuasion with their authentic message and mission.
Since its announcement in 2012, there has been a lot of controversy about what is known as the Jesus Wife Papyrus otherwise known as the Gospel of Jesus’ wife.This is a small fragment of text written in the Coptic language that has been examined by a leading scholar from Harvard University, Professor Karen King and her colleagues.
After Professor King announced the existence of the papyrus accusations of forgery quickly followed seemingly due to the contents of the fragment. It appears to feature Jesus saying the words, ‘my wife’.
Professor King is a respected Harvard scholar with a long standing reputation. Before the announcement she had already done some initial investigation and satisfied herself that this was an authentic manuscript, but still the accusations came.
Jesus had a wife?
For Jesus to mention a wife is so abhorrent to some people that they will perhaps always claim it is a forgery. Noticeably these same people do not denigrate every little fragment of the Gospel of Mark or John, presumably because the contents do not offend them in those cases.
Professor Karen King has always been careful to point out that this text does not mean that Jesus was married: just that some early Christians might have thought he was.
After the media frenzy and some further investigation by the likes of MIT scientists, a scholarly publication concluded that the papyrus and the ink were both ancient. Yet still the debate is raging with many still insisting that the fragment is a modern forgery.
In praise of the feminine
In my opinion, as an outsider to Biblical scholarship, there seems to be more debate about this piece of Coptic script than a lot of other pieces of Coptic script. Maybe because the actual text is saying something that many people just do not believe Jesus could have uttered – he praises women and perhaps even refers to someone who is his wife.
The full translation is as follows from both the front and the back of the fragment.
Translation
1 ] “not [to] me. My mother gave me li[fe…” 2 ] .” The disciples said to Jesus, “.[
3 ] deny. Mary is [not?]worthy of it [
4 ]…” Jesus said to them, “My wife . .[
5 ]… she is able to be my disciple . . [
6 ] . Let wicked people swell up … [
3
7] . As for me, I am with her
3 in order to . [ 8 ] . an image … [
] my moth[er ] thr[ee
] …[
] forth …[
] (untranslatable) [
This is the translated text in full which is taken from the front and back of this tiny credit card sized fragment. Of course it is just a fragment and there are lots of gaps, but it is mainly the line, ‘Jesus said to them “my wife..”‘ that is causing the controversy.
Comparison of other texts
But if we look more closely, this does fit with other texts that we know of. For example in this fragment, Jesus discusses whether a woman is able to be his disciple. This has parallels with some other non-canonical texts such as the Gospel of Phillip in which there are arguments about whether or not Mary Magdalene was fit to receive teaching from Jesus due to her being a woman.
What drew my attention were the first lines “My mother gave me life” which precedes a passage seeming to praise woman including the phrase “as for me, I am with her”.
A forgotten gospel
This passage seemingly praising the virtues of women reminded me of something called the Tibetan Gospel of Issa. Nowadays this text is pretty much forgotten but about one hundred years ago ‘The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ’ by Nicolai Notovitch caused a bit of a sensation.
Notovitch was an adventurer and writer. Born in 1858 in the Crimea, he was educated at the University of St Petersburg after serving in the Russian-Turkish war as an Officer.
An epic journey
Apparently in 1887 he travelled to Tibet and Kashmir. During his travels he broke his leg which needed an extended stay in a monastery in Tibet. Whilst he was convalescing, apparently the Buddhist monks allowed him to see and to translate some secret writings that revealed the life of a saint they called Issa. Notovitch took this to mean Jesus Christ.
On this return to the West he published this secret Gospel and it caused a sensation. Nowadays most people think this gospel is a fake and even question if Notovitch was ever in Tibet.
Image Pixabay Public Domain
I find this latter point a bit odd as his book, which is readily available as an ebook, provides a vivid account of his travels in India, Nepal and Tibet and is littered with details. Descriptions of roads, people, vehicles and mountain views abound in his account. Indeed his travelog actually takes up a good deal of the book before the ‘gospel’ even starts.
Most people will probably never even attempt to read the book. It is generally believed to be a fake so when those sorts of rumours are in abundance, people don’t even bother investigating something for fear of wasting their time or worse, of looking gullible and foolish. This is irrespective of whether it is truly fake or not. Even if the travelog part is genuine, it is still uncertain as to whether this newly discovered ‘gospel’ is authentic.
Similarities or synchronicities?
However I did find it interesting that the Gospel of Jesus’ wife or Jesus wife papyrus echoes some of the passages of the sayings of Issa. Such as,
Respect woman for in her we see the mother of the universe and all the truth of divine creation is to come through her…She is also the germ of life and death.
Again this is at the start of a long passage of respecting mothers, women and wives as the source of a man’s divinity on earth.
Even as the Lords of Hosts separated the light from the darkness and the dry land from the waters so does woman posses the divine gift…
In my opinion here are parallels between the Lost Gospel of Issa and the Gospel of Jesus wife. Both texts demonstrate respect for women which Jesus was known for in his teaching. This veneration of women was out of keeping for the time of Jesus and also for the Victorian era in which Notovitch was publishing although it was less of a stretch.
Image Pixabay Public Domain
Certain other elements of the texts bring into question whether this is a Victorian fabrication. The Gospel of Issa features an account of the missing years of Issa/Jesus which it says he spent in India. There he was taught the Vedas and other holy scriptures.
Issa the Rebel
The character of Issa doesn’t like the fact that the holy teachings are kept away from the lower castes of India and decided that all people were created equal so started to spread the teachings.
He also ignored the teachings about the many gods of Hinduism preferring to teach that god is the indivisible soul of the universe. These actions of Issa eventually annoy the Hindu priests as they feel that he is disrupting the social order by teaching the lower castes.
The priests decided to send people to kill him, but Issa escaped and headed for the Himalayas for further study. As the text moves on, Issa almost gets into trouble again with teachers in another area before escaping back to Israel at the age of 29 where eventually he is tried by Pilate. These latter details were purportedly provided by merchants traveling between Palestine and India.
During the text there is a repeated doctrine that God is a formless creator and that idols should not be worshipped. It is hard to say if these texts were made up by Notovich. It is reassuring that he himself wrote a critique of the texts and the contradictions they contain.
Jesus in India and Universal Truths
There is a very strong tradition that Jesus spent some of his missing years in India and Tibet. People have also noticed the similarities between the teachings of Jesus and those of Buddhism in places and have suggested that these have arisen due to Jesus’ missing years having been spent in India. Conversely in the canonical Gospels, at times, Jesus seems adamant that people should follow Jewish laws.
Image Pixabay Public Domain
In my opinion Buddhism and Christianity like all religions include some universal truths which mystics have access to no matter the era. So the similarities between Christianity and Buddhism could be less to do with a possible sojourn of Jesus in India and more to do with the fact that these are universal truths.
Now that the materials involved in the fragments of the Jesus Wife Papyrus have been authenticated, I do find it interesting that there are similarities of between the Jesus wife papyrus and the supposed missing gospel of Issa from Tibet. Because the materials of the fragment of papyrus have been authenticated as being ancient, this may be time to revisit the Issa text as there are some similarities with these lost early Christian beliefs.
One of the most popular interviews I have ever done for Punk Science was in 2008 with Iain McNay of Conscious TV.
It has been shown many times on television channels such as Edge Media TV on Sky amongst others.
What you might not know is that Iain McNay is involved in the music industry and has had a lot of dealings with punk music. So before the cameras started rolling, we had a great chat about music and discovered a shared love of Courtney’s Love’s work – which is grossly underestimated in both our opinions.
Later Ian McNay actually named Punk Science as one of his favourite books of all time which is a great honour especially considering how many authors he interviews!
The interview itself features insights on how the Black Hole Principle came to be as well as musings on the nature of consciousness and quantum physics. You can see the interview here.
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